And Before Eve Was Lilith
by Talia Falcon
Summary: A look at Lilith, who isn't in the Bible, but there's a book bout her. Tell me if I got the name of Jez's kid right.
1. Lilith

You would not believe what I went through trying to find a reference to Lilith in the Bible. I went through seven pages of Genesis, in tiny print, before I gave it up as a fruitless search. It's odd - I could have sworn someone told me there was a sentence in the Bible like the one my title is. Oh well. Have fun. Religion isn't a strong point with me, so this should be interesting. But I could NOT resist. This is written much in the style of the bit of Genesis I am currently putting up with. At least, I think it is. I want no flames. I am Christian myself and know well the fine art of poking fun at my own religion. Learn. I am planning to take this story and run with it; I have no idea what will happen.  
~~~  
And Before Eve Was Lilith...  
  
So say the old ones. No one knows just who Lilith was, though it is suspected that she was not quite human. She was tall, taller even than Adam, and beautiful, with long black hair and bright green eyes; a dangerous color. She was very slender, and very, very clever...  
Some say she was the snake, the temptress who got Man thrown out of the garden. But I say no. She knew the snake, and knew him well. After all, it was she who put him up to it...  
She had loved Adam, but had not cared much for her. She was too strange, too good with the dark panther and tawny lion. He'd seen - or thought he'd seen - her shift into a slim golden beast, which black spots and long, long legs. He was never sure quite what the creature was; it was nothing like any beast he had named.   
Lilith was never pleased with Eve; she found the brown-haired woman irritatingly righteous and God-fearing. But she never meant for Adam to leave the Garden; she meant for Eve to go.  
For many years afterward, Lilith remained in the Garden, weeping for a lost chance. She cried in darkness; so it was that the animal whose form she took has had the mark of black tears running from its' eyes ever since.   
But Lilith, though she eventually stopped her weeping, was never quite the same. Her heart had been broken once; it would not be broken again. She was colder than before, with no pity in her. She left Eden just before the Flood, never to return to that part of the world, to the memories it held for her.  
  
Lilith bore few children - only one, a daughter she called Jezebel, would be known at all. Jezebel took after her father, with wild red hair, fair skin, and fierce temper, but her eyes were her mother's. And her mother's also were her cold heart and calculating mind, as she created chaos in Israel. Her daughter, Alianeth, was the same, as were all her female descendants. Red hair, and eyes as green as Lilith's, were passed down. Eventually, the line moved from Israel to America, and have been firmly rooted there for many generations.  
~~~~  
A slim young woman with black hair had shown up at the same bar, at the same time, wanting the same thing, for more years than the bartender could count. In all those years, she'd hardly changed; always the same intense green eyes, always the soft, husky voice asking for a double, always the bittersweet smile as she drank. He had asked her name but once; she had told him to call her Fleet. He was old now, and so also should Fleet be, but for that she never aged.  
~~~~  
When I first met Lilith, it was a little over two thousand years since the birth of Christ. She had been in the world since the beginning, but I was not to know that until many years later. My name is Jessamyn; I believe she spoke to me that first time because, in name and in looks, I much resembled the daughter she had once had. The name I knew her by for a long time was Fleet, which was the name she always gave if asked.  
I met her by chance at the bar she and I both frequented; I remained with her by choice. She spoke little, but when she did, it was always worth listening to. It was when she'd had a little too much to drink - which was not often - that her tongue was loosest. My most vivid memory of the woman was looking at her across a candleflame when she was slightly drunk, her black hair shading one green eye, the light catching the other and inflaming it to an unearthly brightness.  
She spoke of times long gone past; of the Garden and the Flood and the Crucifixion, of a life spanning not just centuries, but millennia. Of a heart broken and never healed; of being forgotten by the world. Of the look of the world when it was new; of the look of the world now that it was old.   
And may God help me, I believed each word of it. There was something tired and more than human in her voice, something that spoke to me of truth. I saw her pupils go cattish for a moment, then return quickly to normal. She had a secret even I did not learn for many, many years...  
I was very young - too young to be in a bar, really, but I looked older than I really was - when I first met her, so I didn't quite grasp the idea that she didn't age until, at nineteen, I looked at her and saw she was the same as when I was sixteen. That's when we grew closest, those years when we looked to be the same age. The reason I am still around to tell her story is because of something that happened a little after I had turned twenty-four, when we were sitting on a stone wall at a beach, watching the sunset. Looking pensive, Lilith - I knew her name by then - was playing with a silver bracelet in the form of a snake, one that she'd worn as long as I'd known her.   
The only sound was the lap of waves and the cry of seabirds, and it was growing slowly darker. I had one leg up, my arms linked around it and my chin resting on my knee, the other dangling. Just beginning to doze, the sound of Lilith's huskily accented voice came to my ears.  
"If I told you that you could live forever," she said in a quiet, almost hesitant voice, "what would you say?"  
"I would ask if it was really possible," I replied lazily, stretching out on my back and gazing at the sky, painted in muted shades of blue and gold and red. The first stars were coming out. I heard Lilith sigh softly, and shift so that she blocked my view. "I mean it, Jessa. What would you say?"  
"I'd say that eternity would be awfully lonely without someone to share it." I returned my gaze to the sky, and she touched my cheek gently to regain my attention. "And if I told you I'd share it with you?"  
"Then I'd ask what I'd have to do to get it."  
She laughed softly. "Wise child. You ask the questions I never thought of asking the One who made me what I am. If I told you that I could make you like me, that we could be hunting companions until the end of time, that you wouldn't have to be lonely ever again...what would you answer?"  
There was silence between us for a few long breaths. Then, slowly, I said, "You would do that for me?"  
"I wouldn't have offered if I didn't mean it. Child, in all the years I've been alive, in all the places I've been, all the people I've known, you're the only one I've ever thought about asking. I went through thousands of years alone - I don't want to go through thousands more. But if I didn't want you by me through the years, I would not have told you all I have."  
There was another tense silence while I turned the notion over in my head. I had no one to keep me, no one to miss me. It was a tempting thing Lilith offered, and one that I sensed I would not have a second chance to accept.  
"I would say I was willing to run with you for all the time the earth has left," I replied, and I saw her smile. "So be it," Lilith said quietly, then whispered something in a language I'd never heard before, and I fell into a deep sleep.  
~~~~  
When I woke, I was different. I felt that instantly. It was still dark, but things were clearer and sharper; I felt stronger and more powerful. I moved slightly, and called out to the woman I knew was near, "Lilith?"  
Behind you, Jessa.  
I turned to see a long-legged hunting cat sitting and watching me expectantly. She pricked black-rimmed ears and seemed to smile. Yes, it's me. I'd told you about this form, but you hadn't seen it. And there's more to us than just being big cats. Lilith yawned, and then she sat cross-legged in front of me, human formed. "Here. Stand up and look around. This is home now." 


	2. Jessamyn

Jessa's mine, and the bible-writers, being dead, are in no position to sue me. By the way, not even that beach is really mine. It's a place in Marshfield, MA. The tapestries are a bit risqué - forgive me.  
  
And Before Eve Was Lilith...  
  
I stood, ready for my feet to betray me, but did not sway. I glanced around - the room was lighter now - and saw the tapestries that covered every wall of the octagonal room. Seeing my gaze go towards them, Lilith said softly, "Look closely, Jessamyn, and tell me what you see." She gestured towards the wall hanging nearest to an old oaken door. I moved towards it; she followed.  
  
I let my eyes travel over the tapestry. In three successive scenes, a tall woman, unclothed, with long black hair, spoke to a man with curly, sandy hair, looked on scowling as the man walked hand-in-hand with a brown-haired woman, and held one hand out to a snake of a venomous green. My eyes flicked to the next scene; the same woman, with the snake coiled around her neck now - but something was different. From the waist down, the woman had the body of a great spotted cat, her tail lashing around her feet. The next showed no woman at all, but a cheetah standing next to a rearing snake. I turned to look at the other tapestries - all showed the tall woman or the hunting cat that was her other form. The last tapestry was unfinished.  
  
"It's you, isn't it?" I whispered, turning at last to look at her. She laughed softly. "Of course. They weave themselves, you know; they were a gift from my daughter's daughter. She said the things I knew and would know should not be forgotten. But look at the last one."  
  
Even as she spoke, the threads were lifting themselves and a new scene began to form before my eyes. A girl with flaming red hair and eyes as green as Lilith's - with no little shock, I recognized myself - sat on a wall near an ocean, one knee up, next to Lilith. Then another weaving of me, this time gazing at wall after wall of tapestries. The woman next to me put a hand on my shoulder, and, as I turned, smiled. "You are part of my life now, Jessamyn. The threads knew almost before I did. But there will be time for watching them later. Come." And she led me through the door.  
  
The house - or perhaps I should call it a castle - was old, with high, arching ceilings, stone floors, narrow, cross-shaped windows, and huge fireplaces. There were animals everywhere; granite and marble lions, tigers, and all manner of big cats crouching in corners, dragons rearing from the woodwork and wound about beams, snakes curled around pillars, galloping horses carved into the wooden walls, wolves running on the stones underfoot, and eagles soaring overhead. There were real beasts as well; a panther who followed Lilith all around, a falcon sitting unfettered on the back of a chair, even a creature I had assumed didn't exist - a unicorn colt cantering around on spindly legs, not bothered at all by the wolf he nearly stepped on.  
  
Lilith paused and put out a hand to the colt, who clattered up to her on the flagstones. She caressed behind his ears, and he pushed his muzzle into her hand, snorting happily, lipping her fingers gently. The tall woman laughed, and motioned me forward. The unicorn looked at me curiously. "This is Arhara," said Lilith, still with one hand on the colt's neck. "His mother - Salver - is around here somewhere. She's been with me for a long, long time - she's one of the few who survived the flood."  
  
Lilith looked at me, serious now. "We'll be around for a long time too, Jessa. It will be easier for me now, with a companion, but I am worried for you. I was born to this life; you were not." She shrugged a little, and caught my eyes with hers, in a gaze I was almost afraid to break. "If you ever can't handle this, you need to tell me. This is a different world, and it's not always safe." She grinned slightly. "But then, my dear, we're part of what makes it dangerous..."  
  
I grinned back at her, feeling my canines prick my lower lips as I did so; they were longer than I was used to. I ran my tongue over them, relishing the sharpness of them, the predator they implied. I had never noticed it on Lilith before; now that I looked at her closer, with detail-craving cat's-eyes, I saw they were a little sharper. As she saw me process this, her lips curled in a small smile, no teeth showing, her eyes a glowing gold. "So, kitten, what say we take a run?" 


End file.
